Monday, 9 August 2010

Life Isn't Fair, Darling

I am struck by the TOTAL UNFAIRNESS OF LIFE as I sit here with a COLD, in SUMMER, gloomily stuffing my face with Day Nurse capsules and contemplating whether to go and buy more Kleenex or just use loo roll to blow my already-reddening nose. I can handle sunburn in summer (and in fact am often forced to, what with the gingerness and generally lax attitude to sunscreen) but to have a cold in August seems rankly mean of Fate or whoever. Apparently the loo roll option is unwise, as it's generally made from wood pulp (rougher on the face) rather than cotton pulp. Oh, who cares anyway. Whatever happens I'm going to look like a crimson Spacehopper for the next week. The summer cold is particularly vile because you can't even wrap yourself in a duvet and sweat it out in front of a nice warm fire - and since I'm on a stupid stupid Atkins-type diet I can't have honey in my hot lemon and honey. Or hot lemon, as it now would be if I could face anything hot.ANYWAY.Reading a lot of amazingly good stuff at the moment -the new Kate Atkinson ("Started Early, Took My Dog", due out 18th August), always good to see Jackson Brodie again, I'll let you know how it goes;a quite extraordinary book by Tim Powers called "Last Call" which manages to convince you that Bugsy Siegel was in fact the last but one Fisher King, that the Castle Perilous is a casino in Las Vegas, and that if you ever play poker with Tarot cards you risk losing your immortal soul;Procopius's "Secret History" which is basically the Byzantine version of the National Enquirer (you'll never guess how the Empress Theodora used to supplement her income in those pre-imperial career days!! No, really!!) - scandalous, gossipy, unputdownable;"Ottoline And The Yellow Cat" by Chris Riddell, a completely charming childrens' book with illustrations worthy of Edward Gorey (but more optimistic).I will also report back on "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin and "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett (book group choices) when I've got them out of the way. Sadly the cold has turned my brain into porridge and all I secretly want to do is read comics.

22 comments:

Life definitely unfair (am also accredited expert on subject). Poor Mrs Eff: summer colds are the worst kind. Get well soon.In the meantime, I hope that lovely Jackson Brodie et al (Empress Theodora: what a devious trollop - and what fun, hooray!)cheer you up while you're recovering.PS Love the new theme.

Ooh ooh, I HATED Brooklyn. It started off so promisingly, but I really disliked it by the end. Just finished The Passage- another disappointment. Bought it because of all the hype, expecting The Stand- with vampires but found it really hard to get through. I know people said they couldn't put it down and it is good in parts but just way too long and I kept getting distracted. So basically, what I'm trying to say Luce, is that i have had a bad run of books recently. Boo.

Hi Abs! Still awaiting my free copy of The Passage from the lovely Orion rep but he is a tad dizzy. At least if it's free the disappointment may be less? To curb your run of bad books I reccmmend "The Nobodies Album" by Carolyn Parkhurst, who wrote the one about the man trying to teach his dog to speak as it was the sole witness to his wife's death. This one also a bit odd but fab.

Oh, so sorry to hear about the cold, summer colds are the worst, really! V excited that you are however back blogging, and pleased to hear there is a new Jackson Brodie book, like those a lot. I read Bel Canto for a book club, not really my cup of tea, like the sound of Empress Theodora though. Blightyxx

Welcome back...forget the diet and drink hot toddies with or without honey....should make you feel a little better. Am amazed that you can have more than one book on the go - it has to be one at a time for me.....and am catching up on books other people read ages ago...currently plodding through the reluctant fundamentalist..

Blighty - Quite liking Bel Canto, although it's a bit more studiedly magic-realism than I normally like - I like magic OR realism. I may now start looking for a picture of Empress Theodora, the positive reaction to her is making me think she's going to join Sei Shonagon and Gertie Blood on my sidebar.

Libby - let me know if Reluctant Fundamentalist any good - quite fancy it. I think I may dispense with the toddy idea entirely and just have booze. As long as it's not sweet I'm allowed it (hollow sob).

Am impressed with your eclectic selection of reading matter for one so under the weather. Nasally speaking I am in rude health, but still find myself ineluctably drawn to those "Gift With Purchase" Lynda La Plantes flow packed to the front page of SHE magazine.

Abandon the diet. It has lowered your resistance to disease and viral illnesses. Honey and lemon are the least of it. You need chocolate. It is medicinal, you know. I guarantee you'll feel better by the fifth chunk. Who is this Atkins fella anyway? Oh yeah. He's the stickthin guy with the perma-cold and friends who all wear face masks. Not somebody to aspire to. ;-) Get well soon.

Abs - Yes, sadly must confess I have read many many volumes of "The Walking Dead" - cool casting choice! Is it a UK or US adaptation?

Flittersniffer - the "Gift With Purchase" that ALWAYS gets me is the free pair of flipflops. Like I haven't already got 15 pairs.

Steve - Eating my own bodyweight in tomatoes and chilli - I am vitamin C'd to the eyeballs. Ironically I think Dr Atkins had at least one heart attack. Rather like Jim Fixx the jogging guru, who died (also of a heart attack) while out jogging. Look, I just want to not have to tie a jumper round my waist in the tropics, OK??? IS THAT SO WRONG????? sob

I hope your cold is better very soon. Do not blow your nose on loo roll it will be red for ages. Buy those Ultra Balm tissues with a bit of moisturiser in! I'd skip the diet while you have a cold and start again straight after.

I did that India Knight Idiot Proof Diet for two weeks. The roll of fat from my stomach disappeared instantly with zero carbs. I was so delighted I went on a bender and ate all the carbs I'd been missing...

Please please do NOT blow your poor nose on toilet roll - ow! Get some of those lovely balsam tissues and get well soon

I am, er, was, reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, but I have resorted to the audio book. She has an off-putting habit of refering to the protagonist as "He" all the time which makes it hard going.....

Summer colds are so unpleasant. Have you tried cozying up to a glass of iced tea? Or lemonade with a little something to spike it?

Bel Canto is one of my favorite books; oddly enough I haven't really liked anything else she's written. Brooklyn? Eh. Just finished Helen Dunmore's latest - "The Betrayal." I don't know why she doesn't have a US publisher for this, but it was worth ordering it from your side of the ocean.

Christina - I did the India/Neris diet a couple of years ago and lost 2.5 stone. Hoping for similar this time! Also enjoying "Dead Hand" by Paul Theroux at the mo.

Golden Girl - Yes, I had the same problem with her French Revolution one - spent the whole time flicking back to check whether "he" was Danton or Robespierre.

katyboo - YES! Also "Ottoline Goes To Sea" will be out very soon! Pathetically excited. It will be blue!

Laura - thanks for the well-wishes. Must admit have spent an equivalent amount of time reading comics though...

Aparatchick - I haven't read the Helen Dunmore yet, it's supposed to be very good. Why DO publishers make you buy from abroad? Fools. As cold cures go I'm sticking with the Night Nurse (NyQuil I think over there)- ah the dreamless sleep.

Today (13th May 2016) I am mostly:

wondering if I can get to Tesco's and back for a sandwich without missing the afternoon book delivery (what are the odds)

reading "Archie" (the reboot of the 60s comic) by Mark Waid (Daredevil) and Fiona Staples (Saga). I was never, I should add in self-defence, an Archie fan, but the idea of it being all Sunnydaled up is intriguing. If you're a nerd.

wearing "Lys Mediterranee" by Frederic Malle. It's like I've beaten you to death with a bunch of lilies, and you liked it.

unable to stop singing "Cielito Lindo" (aka "the AI YI YI YIII song"), thanks to a violin-playing busker who has been playing variants of it outside for the last 4 hours.

About Me

A veritable dustbin of sparkly factoids. Don't let the fact that I smoke Gauloises put you off. It's a habit, not an indication of moral turpitude. I like anything in a martini glass too.
I used to say I hated politics, sport and reality TV. Then the Olympics happened. Now I just hate politics and reality TV.
My favourite quote is "Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing?" (Lloyd Cole, for you Google searchers). Optimist by nature, pessimist by experience. Oh, and I'm a ginger.

Strange and oddly unrelated Google searches by which people have found my blog...

"pork pie sexual encounters"

"its hard to say words that is not final because many things happen in between"

"Fodens reliable ant"

"my wife say to ex i love you and to me say i love you"

"Frankie Boyle 2p sausage"

"crayon book pictures channelled whelk"

and a special apology to anyone who came here following the promise "Lucy has one of the hottest racks on the planet", IT'S NOT ME. THAT'S A WHOLE OTHER WEBSITE. Although my rack is epic in its own smalltown way.

Perfumes I may bankrupt myself buying one day.

He's one of us!!

Now I love him even more. If it turns out he also likes calvados, Nabokov and the TV works of Aaron Sorkin (what are the odds?) I will in fact lay down my life for him.

Role models I channel when necessary

Miss Prothero in "A Child's Christmas In Wales" by Dylan Thomas : "She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?" "

My mother the librarian, who can express displeasure with a very slight widening of the eyes. Invaluable for dealing with the general public.

My late paternal grandmother, a woman who consumed nothing but untipped Senior Service and gin 'n' sherry (aka "alkie's delight") and once drove down a 1:3 hairpin bend in her Reliant Robin with both hands in the air cackling "Of course, I'm COMPLETELY pissed".

Eleanor of Aquitaine - brought literature and table manners to Britain. And a fellow ginger.

Miss Jones from "Rising Damp". ...."Oh, Mr Rigsby, the music's gone to my head like wine!!!"

Lady Colin Campbell

Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, 1857 - 1911. I go and say hello to Gertie Lady C every time I'm near the National Portrait Gallery. The perspective is all wrong, but she's just daring you to have a go. A raised eyebrow says more than a thousand sarcastic put-downs.

Sei Shonagon (c.966 - 1017)

...also a big fan of pointless lists of things, although I have never reached the giddy heights of "Things that look a bit pathetic".

Esteemed Colleagues

Booksellers Anonymous

"Well, to be honest, after years of smoking and drinking, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...You know, just sometimes, in between the first cigarette with coffee in the morning to that four hundredth glass of cornershop piss at 3am, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...this is fantastic. I'm in heaven." - Bernard from Black Books

Fictional men I have had a crush on (in chronological order)

Asterix. I wrote a proposal of marriage, to me, from him, in yellow crayon and presented it to my mother. I was 4 at the time.

Snufkin.

Prince Gwydion of the Sons of Don.

Ged, aka Sparrowhawk, the Wizard of Earthsea (well, one of them).

Tintin. What can I say? I was 6.

Mr Knightley from "Emma". So much more appealing than the rebarbative and snotty Mr Darcy. Always marry your best friend.

Brat Farrar.

Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct.

Tom Ripley, eponymous hero of the Patricia Highsmith series. Not sure if I love him or secretly want to be him (how liberating would it be to just murder some complete stranger on a train because their clothes annoy you a bit?) Envy his cute french wife though.

Amit Chatterji. Honestly, how was he not the most suitable boy?????????

John Constantine, the old Hellblazer himself. Well, it'd be rude not to. He's hot! He's scruffy! He's British! He's a warlock! And he smokes! Although the fact that he seems only to smoke Silk Cut makes him oddly wussy.

Charlie Parker - not the jazz musician, the private eye from "Every Dead Thing" et al. Traumatised. Psychic. Mind you the fact that I have a crush on John Connolly, the author, may have a bearing on this.

Berry Rydell from "Virtual Light". Endearingly shambolic.

King Mob from "The Invisibles". Buff, bald, a trained assassin, and an inveterate quoter of The Kinks.

Dexter Morgan, unapologetic (nay, gleeful) serial killer from "Darkly Dreaming Dexter". The TV series got him wrong, even if it was great viewing. Should have been Brendan Fraser.

"Angel" by Thierry Mugler. Vile. Smells of the cat-hair-covered toffee you find down the back of the sofa. Also of ageing and desperate cabin crew.

The "Toast" catalogue. Smells of linseed oil and old haddock. WHY??? What are they printing it on? Or with???

Wet Barbour jackets, and don't kid yourself otherwise, Tarquin.

Things people do that make me want to slap them.

Shout "I can't believe you're doing this to me" at a traffic warden who is, usually deservedly, giving them a ticket. Believe it, love, the evidence is right before you.

Preface a question with "Question!"

Get grumpy about "too much choice" in bookshops etc. What the hell does "too much choice" mean??? I've started saying cheerfully "Absolutely! Bring in a totalitarian Communist state and you'll just have one book which you'll HAVE to read!"

Sulk. Irritating in a small child, positively BACKWARD in anyone over 15.

Use phrases like "it's not in my skill set" when they mean "I'm too idle/self-important to learn". Lucinda Ledgerwood, come on dowwwwwn!!